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Times of Transition

I would like to apologize to both you and myself for not writing as consistently within the past month or so. My husband and I have been traveling and transitioning, so it has been hard for me to grab a moment and collect my thoughts. We spent about a week traveling around Ireland and Scotland and shortly after that we moved back from London to New York. (How cosmopolitan do we sound? Geesh… Don’t be fooled.) A couple of days after our move back to New York, we drove down to North Carolina to pick up our dog, Tiki, and we spent a couple of days there with my parents.

Tiki and I reunited after nearly a year apart!

So needless to say, it’s been a very difficult month for proper nutrition and training. Unfortunately, my body looks soooo different now than it does in my photos and it’s kind of depressing! I mean, I do realize that I should give myself a break and not be so hard on myself since this last month has been pretty wacky, but I’m not always 100% sensible. It’s hard to have your body just where you want it….and then you just lose it. It makes you feel out of control and it doesn’t feel good. I make it sound like I’ve become obese over the last month….well, it’s not THAT bad! I’m just softer at the moment. My muscles are just hiding out! I’m retaining a lot of water from the additional calories and carbs and may have put on a smidgen of fat, so my rational-self knows that all is not lost! And besides, it’s not like I’m prepping for something right now. I don’t have a photo shoot or competition in the pipeline, so there’s no reason I should feel pressure to be perfect.

After our trip to Ireland and Scotland (where we really just let loose and ate whatever came our way), we tried to tighten things up a bit. Yes, we had last dinners and parties with our friends in London, but we kept up with our workouts and ate our normal meals when we could. Since moving to New York, we’ve had to be a bit more creative with our workouts because we haven’t obtained a gym membership yet. There’s a park nearby that we’ve done sprints in and they have pull-up bars for us to play on. So we’ve been doing a lot of pull-ups and push-ups. We’ve also been doing some longer distance runs (3+ miles) in both New York and North Carolina. (The hilly roads near my parents’ house are absolutely BRUTAL!) So anyways, we’ve been doing what we can.

Now we are back in New York for about a month, so life will be relatively normal for a while. A friend of my husband’s family has hooked us up with some passes to the YMCA, which we are extremely grateful for. I’m looking forward to getting my hands on some iron again! This morning we did some sprints and pull-ups in the park and I might do some work with the dumbbells that we have on hand this afternoon. Training is actually going to be pretty hot and heavy this month because my husband is preparing to go back into the Army as an Officer. I’m taking this opportunity to do some extra training with him and kick-start the reduction of this transition-time-weight-gain.

I’m happy that life is going to normalize for a while. I’m definitely a creature of habit. Sure, it’s fun to take a break for a while, but I can only handle that for about a week before I start becoming depressed and longing for my typical lifestyle. I can honestly say that I NEVER get tired of my morning egg whites and oatmeal. I do think that we all need to remember one thing though, and that is:

Life happens and sometimes there are more important things to worry about besides nutrition and training! Just do the best that you can with the circumstances that have been given to you!

The shoot went well – thanks for your tips. I followed them all for myself, adding 4 glasses of red instead of 2 😉 I would say I needed more carbs (should have drunk a few beers the night before), and more carbs the morning of (just couldn’t fit them in). And I should have done a better pump up. But it was great fun and a fantastic document of ‘where I’ve got to’. I highly recommend the process to anyone. Enjoying your blog.

Glad to hear you had fun at your shoot! Before my shoot I had actually asked the legendary Coach Scott Abel (on his blog) if I should do a carb or fat load. He said that for women it shouldn’t be necessary if your body is where it should be. Plus, loads of vascularity and pumps aren’t really part of “the look” that is appreciated by magazine editors and/or judges in the fitness industry. Now, it can be a different story for men, and carb/fat loading and pumping up can be beneficial in achieving that “look.” Happy to hear you’re enjoying the blog! I’ve been away for a while but hope to have some more interesting posts coming up.